Walk-in showers
A level floor, a drain that keeps up and glass that stays put. We ask contractors to price all three as separate lines, and we check the community's rules before the bath comes out.
The floor decides it
A walk-in shower has no tray to step over and, in its simplest form, no door: the floor falls to a drain and a fixed glass panel keeps the water in. That floor is where a walk-in shower succeeds or fails. It has to slope towards the drain, carry a waterproof membrane underneath, and line up with the rest of the bathroom floor at the edge.
How much does a walk-in shower cost in Dubai?
A walk-in shower in Dubai is priced with the bathroom it sits in: AED 8,000 to 15,000 for a small bathroom rebuilt at basic finishes and AED 15,000 to 45,000 for a standard one, per bathroom, because the published bathroom bands never price the shower alone. One published per-bathroom scope lists shower glass beside waterproofing, tiling and plumbing, and that list is the checklist a walk-in shower quote should follow.
| Choice | Options | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Drain | Linear channel or centre point drain | A linear drain lets the floor fall one way; a point drain needs falls from every side |
| Threshold | Flush with the bathroom floor, or a low step | A flush entry may need the slab recessed or the whole floor raised |
| Glass | Fixed panel, or a panel with a door | A fixed panel has no seals to wear; a door keeps more heat and spray in |
| Floor tiles | New floor, or new tiles over the old ones | Where old tiles must stay, the shower floor starts higher |
| Membrane | Liquid-applied or sheet | It runs under the whole wet zone and up the walls |
Two of those rows are set by your building before they are set by taste. Emaar's apartment rules keep the existing tiles and allow new ones only on top, which lifts the shower floor, and they rule out relocating MEP, which fixes where the drain can go. Our bathroom tiling page covers the tiles-over-tiles route in detail.
Send us a photo of the bathroom
Usually, and the paperwork depends on the community. Town Square names the job outright: removing a bathtub for a flat shower, or the reverse, is a major alteration at AED 2,000 plus an AED 5,000 deposit, decided in 5 working days, and only townhouses may do it. Starting without that approval exposes the owner to Town Square's AED 50,000 penalty for an unapproved major alteration.
Elsewhere the job is sorted into each community's own tiers. Dubai Holding communities want an application for anything beyond maintenance and repair. Emaar takes it through the Home Modifications NOC. Nakheel's 2023 villa design codes, which exempted a bathroom refurbished without changing its walls, were taken down when those communities moved to Dubai Holding, so Dubai Holding's application rule covers Nakheel villas too. Dubai Municipality itself treats changing floors and maintaining sanitary fittings and drainage as simple maintenance with no permit, done by an accredited contractor.
The one that suits the existing waste. A linear channel along the wall or the entry lets the whole floor fall in one direction, which suits large-format tiles and a flush entry. A centre point drain needs the floor to fall from every side, which works best with smaller tiles that can follow the slope. In a building where the waste cannot move, the drain type is chosen to fit the pipe that is already there, not the other way round.
Ask for the drain's make and flow rate in the quote, and for the falls to be checked with water before the tiles go down. A walk-in shower with no door relies on the floor to keep water from reaching the rest of the room.
No. The classic walk-in design uses one fixed panel, and the length of that panel and the fall of the floor do the work a door would do. A door holds in more heat and spray, which matters for a steam room, and brings seals and hinges that need looking after. In Town Square a shower glass partition is a home improvement item at AED 160, the lightest approval tier the community publishes.
With those lines in hand, the shower can be compared across quotes and against the per-bathroom bands on our cost page. For the rest of the room, see how we price a whole bathroom. The hub's quote checklist lists what every renovation quote should carry, from the licence number to the payment stages.
Scope
The bathroom is stripped out and rebuilt with the walk-in shower in the new layout: floor to falls, membrane, drain, glass and tiles. Published bands for a full renovation start at AED 8,000 per bathroom.
from AED 8,000 per bathroom
The bath comes out and a level shower goes in its place, with the rest of the room left as it is. It is priced after a survey, once the community has said which approval tier applies.
Priced after a survey
Questions
Bath or shower today, villa or apartment, and the community. We come back with contractors who quote against the published bands, and show you where each quote sits against them.